


this skin i can do without

by IceImagines



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Brief suicidal thoughts, F/M, Trauma, death of the author baby, enobaria has a blood trigger/phobia, enobaria was tortured in the capitol, here suzanne collins have haymitch explaining to you why youre dumb, nothing is okay and everything is bad, panic attacks from ptsd, ship is pretty minor, terminal case of being in love with your best friend but too dumb to do anything about it, yeah so uh having razor sharp teeth isnt actually all that great in everyday life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 16:07:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20530778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceImagines/pseuds/IceImagines
Summary: Enobaria has been standing at the edge of a gaping abyss for thirteen years. When the Quarter Quell is announced, it's like a shove to the back.





	this skin i can do without

**Author's Note:**

> hoo boy it's been a hot second since i wrote for this fandom, four years to be precise,
> 
> anyway i rewatched the movies and remembered the 115k enobaria fanfic i wrote and posted on a different site when i was 13 and i was like "i can do better" so here we are
> 
> again major trigger warnings for graphic violence, a lot of blood and ptsd
> 
> title is from half by pvris
> 
> big thanks to anna audrey and margaret who all read the first draft of this and then lovingly informed me of why it sucked (im kidding you guys were too nice i love u)
> 
> the german original (also by me i translated it myself in case you were wondering) can be found on fanfiktion.de
> 
> have fun

The careers this year intimidate Katniss, significantly more so than the ones from the last games. 

She remembers Cato and Clove very well. The golden gladiator costumes at the parade. The glance Cato threw her afterwards, the look in his eyes. The unspoken promise that she would die on his blade.

But Katniss didn‘t die. Neither through Cato nor through one of his allies. Glimmer and Marvel, she killed herself, Clove, she saw die at the very least. Seconds earlier she‘d been getting ready to cut Katniss open with that diabolical smirk on her face, then Thresh suddenly grabbed her and threw her against the cornucopia. The panic on her pointy face has burned itself into Katniss‘s mind, the mortal fear in her voice as she screamed for Cato. The horrible dent in her forehead when Thresh finally threw her to the ground.

And Cato, kneeling next to Clove and begging her to stay with him. His screams as the mutts tore him to pieces.

The careers Katniss knows were dangerous, raised from early childhood to become murderers. But they were children. When it came down to it, they were all just terrified children like the rest of them. 

The people Katniss encounters here, during the 75th Hunger Games, aren‘t children. And they seem to have next to nothing else in common with Cato and his friends either. Even Cashmere and Gloss, the perfect brother-sister-pair the Capitol loves so much, resemble Glimmer and Marvel superficially at most. They make themselves appear arrogant, but their beautiful blue eyes are cold. Angry.

Haymitch knows these people. Katniss asks him about them. Haymitch looks at her, shakes his head and pours himself another whiskey.

„Well observed. No, these guys aren‘t like the careers you know.“ He takes a big swig. „Those idiots last year, they could swing a sword and beat their chest real well, but that was about it.“ 

„And these victors can do more than that?“

Haymitch lets out a short laugh. „Kiddo, there‘s a few things you haven‘t quite gotten through your skull about the careers yet. They train their whole lives for only one purpose: winning the Hunger Games. And the academies they put their kids in in One and Two, those aren‘t like teaching yourself how to shoot a bow in the woods. They start at five. About a third of them are dead within the next three years.“

„Dead?“

„Yes, what do they call it again?“ Haymitch frowns as if in deep thought. „Right. _To sort the wheat from the chaff_. And then they go on like that. Seven days a week, twelve hours a day, and the only time they do anything else is during the Games, which they all watch together while their trainers have them analyze every detail. Barely any make it to the age where they could volunteer in the first place. Out of those, only the best ones are selected to actually do it.“

He pauses.

„And what happens to most of those, the best of the best, well, you‘ve seen that for yourself.“ 

„The careers win the Games all the time“, Katniss argues. 

„Yeah, but not always, do they? And even if they did, only one out of the four or five of them gets out of there alive. Most of them kick the bucket just like we do.“ 

„What are you trying to say?“

Haymitch plops down on the sofa next to her. A bit of whiskey splashes onto his shirt, but he ignores it. 

„I‘m trying to say that the people you‘re going into the arena with in a week are the very top end of the food chain.“ He makes a vague gesture. „There are no harmless victors. But the ones from One and Two aren‘t just dangerous. They‘re the ones that came out on top among hundreds of kids their age that were just as bloodthirsty, and then were good enough to survive three or more more or less exactly like them. Not to mention the other twenty kids whose lives depended on whether they could kill them or not.“ 

„And now they all have years as mentors under their belt as well“, Katniss adds, voice flat. Haymitch nods.

„Everyone here except for the two of you knows the Games like the back of their hand. They‘re prepared for anything. None of them will make the mistake of learning no survival tactics and relying on sponsors. Not even the careers.“

They‘re silent for a moment while Katniss thinks on what was just said. 

„Do you know them?“, she asks finally. „Cashmere and Gloss and the ones from Two.“ 

„‘Course.“ 

„What are they like?“

Haymitch sets the glass down and meets her gaze. „Bitter. Unstable. Vicious. Rotten to the core. And desperate.“ 

„Why desperate?“ Katniss has to think of Brutus from District 2, who volunteered so happily. „They didn‘t seem like they had a lot of issues with the idea of having to go back into the arena.“ 

„Yes. They always were great at acting.“ Haymitch leans his head backwards. „Katniss, do you remember the kid with the knives from last year?“ 

„Of course.“ How could she forget Clove?

„Did you know she was Enobaria‘s protegée?“ 

Enobaria, the woman from district 2, with the sharp teeth? Katniss shakes her head.

„Well, Enobaria trained her personally since the girl was about eight. She was practically obsessed with her. Convinced she‘d win at some point. At least that‘s what she told everyone, but no one really bought that she just wanted a victor, she had enough of those.“ He sighs. „When Clove died, she lost it. Trashed the entire apartment, then left the Capitol early.“ 

So Enobaria cared about Clove.

„Then she can‘t have a very high opinion of me.“

„She hates you with the fire of ten hells“, Haymitch confirms. 

Katniss thinks of Enobaria‘s golden fangs and shivers. „Then I guess all that‘s left for me to do is hope she won‘t rip my throat out.“ 

Suddenly Haymitch looks very serious. „That‘s probably the one thing you don‘t need to worry about. She throws up at so much as the sight of raw meat and blood.“ 

Katniss raises her eyebrows. „Sounds like a bad premise for the Hunger Games.“ 

„Don‘t think for one second it will make her hunt you with less determination“, Haymitch warns. „And Brutus follows her every step. He probably only volunteered because of her. Believe me, kiddo, nobody will try to get out of that arena alive as desperately as them. And unlike most of the others they actually are capable of killing all of you.“ 

\----------------

The night when the Quarter Quell was announced, Enobaria stood on the roof of her house in the Victor‘s Village, stared down at the street below her and considered whether she should let herself fall. The tips of her shoes were already over the edge. The house had three stories, the fall would almost certainly kill her. 

The desire to take the final step forward dug into her with so much brutal intensity that it made her head swim. It wasn‘t the first time over the course of the last thirteen years that she found herself up here, but she‘d never been so close to actually doing it.

Just like always, she isn‘t sure whether it‘s cowardice or courage that always makes her step back from the edge. A few weeks later she‘s sitting in the final car of the train to the Capitol, the one with the glass wall, idly spins a knife between her thumb and forefinger and damns whatever it was. 

_Maybe it won‘t be you_, Lyme told her. She showed up at her doorstep the day after the announcement, like she knew the state Enobaria was in, and tried to cheer her up, even made some tea. Like it would change anything.

_Maybe it won‘t be you._

Enobaria knew the whole time that it was going to happen. The inevitability felt like a noose around her neck at first, but now it‘s almost comforting. 

Almost.

Brutus enters the wagon. The door closes soundlessly behind him as he sinks down onto the sofa below the curved widow, at its other end - as far away from her as possible. 

Enobaria has known Brutus for over ten years. He wasn‘t her mentor, but later, at the academy, they spent a lot of time as trainers together, and he‘s one of a very small selection of people she can confidently say she cares about. In over ten years she has not seen him like this even once. Without any tension in his body, his aquamarine blue eyes empty. 

He doesn‘t look calm or relaxed in the least. He looks exhausted. Burned out.

„Why did you volunteer?“

Her voice is completely flat. She isn‘t looking at him as she speaks. The knife twirls between her fingers without pause.

„I couldn‘t let you go in there alone.“ 

He sounds so tired. So incredibly tired.

„And what did you accomplish, hm? You could have lived on. Now we‘re both going to die.“ 

She doesn‘t get a response. Only now does she turn her head, lets her eyes drift over his slumped form. 

„Are you still trying to save me, Brutus?“ Her words almost sound gentle. „I thought you had given up on that by now.“ 

He shakes his head. „Not before I die.“ 

A sardonic smile splits her lips, showing off her teeth. „Better hurry then.“ 

They don‘t speak anymore after that. There is nothing to speak about. 

The last time she was on this train she was full of enthusiasm, full of fire, burning with the conviction that she‘d be on her way home in a few weeks, victorious, glorious. 

Home she did come. But the blood in her mouth when she cut open her tongue on her sharp teeth in her sleep for the dozenth time didn‘t taste like victory. 

The arrival in the Capitol is exactly the same to an almost ridiculous degree. She feels violated as her prep team pulls and pushes at her and rubs her skin raw; exposed on the chariot during the parade. She hates all the eyes on her, but she bares her teeth and lets Brutus take her hand and pull it upwards and plays the game perfectly. She is accustomed to that, after all. 

President Snow still petrifies her from head to toe. She doesn‘t notice that her nails have left bloody indents in Brutus‘s hand until after the chariot has already left the square. 

Neither of them sleeps that night. Instead they sit opposite each other in the apartment‘s living room, pitch black except for the Capitol‘s lights outside that shine in through the glass wall. Enobaria catches herself thinking about how their tributes have to be sleeping already in the rooms down the hall before she remembers that she is the tribute. 

Her head is still swimming, has been ever since the night of the announcement. Sometimes she feels like she went back in time. Like she‘s seventeen again. Deadly, determined, utterly convinced of her total superiority.

And so dumb.

What wouldn‘t she give to get to be that dumb again. Just once. 

„I had nightmares, you know.“ She‘s whispering, but in the silence of the room it sounds like a scream. „Of having to go back.“

„Me too.“ In the dim light she sees his hand shaking, balled into a fist on the glass table. 

They‘re silent for a while.

„Are you afraid?“, he asks finally.

She considers this. Pushes the word around in her mouth between gold-tipped fangs. Thinks about how they dug into the throat of the boy from Six as he was kneeling above her, ready to shatter her skull. Thinks about the dent in Clove‘s forehead as she was lying on the ground, bug-eyed, dead. 

„Yes.“ 

She has never been this afraid in all her life. 

The next day during training, she wins spar after spar, hisses and bares her teeth, just as everyone expects her to do. The other victors don‘t stare at her in fear like the tributes back then did. Except for the two from Twelve - no experience.

Enough experience to make President Snow look like a fool. So much that he has to get rid of them, no matter the cost, even if it means he has to kill twenty-two more of them. 

The fury is seething deep in Enobaria‘s belly as she watches Everdeen put one arrow after the other through the holograms. The others are clearly impressed.

Enobaria isn‘t impressed. Enobaria wonders whether Everdeen will look better with a sword through the chest or a knife in her forehead. 

It‘s been a while since she had such thoughts. She hasn‘t missed it. 

During lunch she and Brutus share a table with Cashmere and Gloss. Enobaria feels ridiculous. They‘re pretending to be the bad guys, playing career pack as if everything was exactly like it was back then, during their first Games. Except this time nobody is gossiping and laughing. The four of them are silent. Cashmere looks like she‘s nauseous, Gloss like he can‘t decide whether he wants to burst into tears or break the table. Brutus‘s muscles are tense almost to the breaking point. 

Enobaria doesn‘t touch her food. She couldn‘t have chewed most of it without tearing open the inside of her own mouth anyway. 

„Who knows, I might just starve in the arena“, she speculates that evening when they‘re back in their apartment.

„You won‘t,“ Brutus replies, but she isn‘t wrong. Since Snow had her teeth filed down, she‘s been mostly incapable of eating solid food. She‘s often wondered whether that was intentional, meant to humiliate her further.

She hopes it won‘t come to that. She‘d rather die on the blade of some morphling than starve to death, ruined, after all, by the only thing anyone respects her for. 

The next two days are maddeningly monotone. Then, on the last evening, someone injures themselves at the station with the axes. Enobaria is standing right there, hears them cry out and sees them fall to the ground as blood seeps into the training mat. 

The wound goes right down to the bone. Enobaria just barely makes it out the door before her legs give in and she throws up the sparse contents of her stomach. 

For minutes she kneels there on the hallway floor. The convulsions won‘t stop, not even when she‘s long past the point of actually having anything to regurgitate. All she sees in front of her eyes is the blood, the torn muscle, the pale white bone underneath. 

She‘s shaking, her mind blank except for the ice cold, all-encompassing terror that has dug its claws into her. She doesn‘t taste her own bitter vomit. She tastes hot, metallic blood. 

At some point the door behind her opens. Panic grips her. She can‘t let anyone see her like this. 

But she knows who it is the moment a hand settles on her shoulder.

„Baria.“ Brutus‘s voice is soft. Enobaria feels tears well up in her eyes.

„Can you get up?“ 

She silently shakes her head, hears him sigh quietly. Then he sits down next to her on the plastic floor and puts an arm around her. He doesn‘t even seem to notice the smell.

Enobaria exhales shakily and closes her eyes. In her mind she‘s still standing on the roof of her house, barely one step away from the edge. 

She leans heavily against Brutus‘s side, buries her face in her hands and cries like she hasn‘t in twenty-three years. 

Afterwards, she feels empty, stripped of all her strength. She looks in the mirror the next morning and doesn‘t recognize the woman looking back at her. 

She gets through her interview as if on autopilot. Later, she doesn‘t remember a single word she said. But when Katniss Everdeen starts to spin on that stage and the whole world watches as her wedding dress goes up in flames, the victors suddenly start to take each other‘s hands. It starts with the outer districts, then spreads further and further, and when Wiress from Three holds her hand out to Brutus and looks at him almost accusingly, even he and the others stop hesitating. 

Enobaria can see tears in Gloss‘s eyes when he follows suit with the other victors and holds their clasped hands up high. Real tears. Not like the ones Cashmere feigned for the Capitol during their interview. 

Enobaria doesn‘t cry. She laughs. Throws her head back and laughs so her golden fangs gleam in the light, like she wants to bare her teeth to the Capitol one last time before she meets her end. 

She doesn‘t try to fool herself. They might all be holding hands right now but as soon as they‘re in the arena, none of them will hesitate to spill someone else‘s blood to save their own life. 

But for a single moment she feels something deep within her as she stares into the cameras with her teeth bared, holding onto Gloss‘s and Brutus‘s hands. A spark. 

It‘s extinguished the second the light goes out on stage and the broadcast is stopped, but later, she will remember it and think that maybe that was what gave the rebels their drive. That maybe she, too, would have fought for her freedom, has she remembered what that was. 

They‘re taken to the arena the next morning. The sun burns Enobaria‘s skin as she‘s waiting for the cannon to go off, signaling the start of the Games. She feels like it‘s going to melt the flesh off her bones the next moment. 

The bloodbath at the cornucopia is over quickly, more quickly than usual. Maybe because a lot of the victors from the outer districts understood last time that there‘s no point in trying to take on the careers. Of course, some of them still take the chance. Odair and the little group he‘s surrounded himself with catch a few of them before they bolt. Enobaria barely manages to evade one of Everdeen‘s arrows. 

She stabs her sword through Cecelia‘s abdomen. The cannon goes off almost immediately. For a split second she thinks of the three children that clung to Cecelia at the reaping, but then she turns around and goes back to the cornucopia. There‘s no point. Cecelia was dead the moment her escort read out her name. 

Enobaria is thankful for the water and the dark rocks - they make it harder to see the blood. She still feels sick when the last of the tributes have fled into the forest and only her, Brutus, Cashmere and Gloss remain on the island with the cornucopia. 

She is disgusted by her weakness. She wishes she could be as bloodthirsty as everyone thinks she is. 

Over the course of the day, several more cannons go off, none of them caused by their alliance. They‘ve occupied the cornucopia, and after the sun has gone down they all sit in the opening of the huge metal structure. None of them dare to sleep. Cashmere and Gloss are huddled close together. Cashmere is crying softly. 

She‘s pulled herself together so well until now. Enobaria knows that her district has to disdain her for being so weak, and she probably disdains herself, too. But there‘s a limit to everything. And she also knows that barely anyone was as afraid of the new Games as Cashmere was. 

Maybe she knows that she‘s going to die. During her Games, Cashmere killed as ruthlessly as everyone else, but her Games were a long time ago. And she‘s grown soft since then. Too soft. 

She won‘t kill Enobaria. Probably not Brutus, either. Gloss will only do it if one of them attacks Cashmere. Enobaria watches the puffy, exhausted face of the woman who‘s been one of her only friends for ten years and considers whether she should slit her throat tonight. It would be the only thing she could still do for Cashmere. 

Because she will die. The only question is whether she will have to suffer or not. 

Brutus is sitting next to Enobaria and carves nonsensical patterns into the floor with the tip of his knife. He‘s taken off the upper part of his arena uniform, she‘s followed suit. The heat is unbearable. At least they discovered a few bottles of water in the cornucopia. 

„How are you feeling?“, he whispers to her.

„Like shit.“ She stares out across the water. Brutus silently puts a hand on her shoulder and she decides that she has nothing left to lose. So she moves closer to him and leans against his side, just like she did a few days ago in the training center. She takes his hand off her shoulder and holds it in her own instead. 

If Cashmere and Gloss notice, they don‘t show it. Enobaria is grateful. 

„I want to go home.“ 

The words fall from her lips without her contribution.

„You‘ll get to go home.“ 

A joyless smile flickers across her face. „You don‘t know that.“ 

„Yes“, he says softly, „I do.“ 

_Maybe. But I‘d be all alone._

The sudden realization that he has to die if she wants to live buries itself in her gut like her sword in Cecelia‘s belly. Brutus, her best friend. Brutus, who volunteered just so she wouldn‘t have to be alone in here. Brutus, who seems completely prepared even now to give his own life in order to save hers. 

She hates him for it. She can stand it if the her hands are stained with the blood of every single person in this arena, but not his. Never his. 

Enobaria thinks back to how it used to be when they were younger. Not quite as broken, not quite as jaded. More than once they were so close to where something could have been between them. But Enobaria was always too cold.

Too full of ruin.

She thinks of the one, the only time that she kissed him. It was years ago. They were at a sponsor‘s party in the Capitol, bored to death, drunk. 

He cut his lips open on her teeth. She tasted his blood in her mouth and panic gripped her with icy claws. She ended up spending the rest of the night huddled up and quivering on the bathroom floor, and she couldn‘t get the taste of his blood out of her mouth, no matter how many times she rinsed it out. 

She couldn‘t look him in the eyes for weeks after. He never blamed her for it. 

Just like Cashmere won‘t kill her, she won‘t kill Brutus. And if the two of them end up being the only ones left she‘ll throw all of her weapons away before laying a single finger on him. 

She‘d rather let him snap her neck and go home by himself. 

The next morning, they retreat into the jungle to look for food, unsuccessfully. Enobaria isn‘t too bothered by it. Whatever they might have found, she couldn‘t have eaten it anyway.

She hasn‘t slit Cashmere‘s throat yet. If she doesn‘t die during the day, Enobaria will do it the next night. She‘ll have to kill Gloos as well or he‘ll attack her and Brutus.

She imagines what they will look like with two thin red lines across their necks, unmoving. The thought makes bile rise up to her mouth. 

But around noon they spot the Everdeen alliance on the cornucopia island. They outnumber Enobaria and the others, but Cashmere and Gloss decide to attack anyway. Gloss manages to slit Wiress‘s throat before Everdeen shoots an arrow into his heart. Cashmere cries out in despair one last time and throws herself at Everdeen, but Johanna Mason‘s axe drives itself deep into her chest and she, too, collapses. 

For a split second the world loses focus in front of Enobaria‘s eyes before she grabs Brutus‘s arm and drags him back across the beach, into the shielding undergrowth of the jungle. The two of them alone don‘t have a chance. Everdeen, Mason, Odair and Mellark are all dangerous and armed. Their sheer advantage in numbers would make it impossible to overwhelm them in direct combat.

Enobaria doesn‘t stop until the beach isn‘t visible anymore. Then her legs practically give out underneath her. She leans back against a tree trunk, closes her eyes and tries to get rid of the image of Cashmere‘s shattered chest in her mind. 

„Baria?“ Brutus crouches down in front of her. 

Her breath is still heavy, her lungs burning. It takes her several heartbeats until she can answer. 

„I would have killed them. Tonight.“ Her face is dripping with sweat. She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand. „I didn‘t want it to end it like this.“ 

She raises her head and looks into Brutus‘s eyes. „They didn‘t deserve that. They didn‘t want...“ 

She struggles with herself, with the overwhelming desire to say it out loud, even though she knows that Cashmere and Gloss‘s family is sure to suffer for every word she says.

Finally she exhales sharply and slumps down. She‘s so tired. She doesn‘t want to keep going. 

Again, there are tears in her eyes. Why is she so fucking weak?

„God, I wish you weren‘t here.“ She doesn‘t think about it before she says it. Her voice is rough, the desperation in it impossible to miss. She can‘t stand the hurt that flashes in his eyes. 

„Why did you have to volunteer, you... you arrogant, pig-headed...“ A sob escapes her.

„I already told you why“, he replies calmly.

„I don‘t want you to die for me, dammit!“ She practically screams the words out. A part of her likes how he flinches. „There‘s nothing about me that‘s worth saving! You should have stayed home. Watched me die on television and forgot about me. That‘s all I deserve.“ 

She wipes her eyes almost aggressively. „Facing my death alone or fighting for my survival, maybe I could have done that. But I can‘t have your death on my conscience. Not you too.“ 

Brutus says nothing. He reaches out with one hand and touches her scraped up cheek, just for a moment. 

„Baria“, he says finally, „there‘s nothing left for me at home. There‘s been nothing for twenty years.“ 

_Not since my games_ remains unsaid.

„If I had stayed there, and you hadn‘t come back, what would‘ve been the point of still keeping going? You know, I‘ve been watching Snow ruin your life for an awful long time now.“ 

For one second, she flinches at the traitorous words before she remembers that they‘re long past that point.

„An awful long time“, he continues, „and now... now it‘s enough. I know I can‘t protect you. But I can make sure that you have at least one ally you can rely on.“ 

„And if only the two of us are left?“

He doesn‘t reply. His silence says more than any amount of words could have.

Enobaria can‘t hold back her tears anymore. „You idiot. You incorrigible fucking idiot.“ 

His only reaction is to pull her to him. She doesn‘t resist. Vaguely, she‘s aware that they‘re probably turning off the broadcast in District 2 now if they haven‘t already, that they‘ve almost certainly just lost all the sponsors they might still have had. She doesn‘t have the strength left to worry about it. 

How long they sit there, on the floor of the jungle, ignoring the fact that at least two more tributes apart from the Everdeen alliance are left and could find them at any time, she doesn‘t know. 

At some point she lifts her head and kisses him. She can tell he‘s surprised, but he doesn‘t push her away. 

Enobaria doesn‘t make an effort to be gentle. She wishes she could, wishes she had the time, the courage for it. But this is all she can give him. 

It‘s not enough, and she knows it. She wasted her chance to do anything about it years ago. 

Blood is running down Brutus‘s chin when she lets go of him, but he‘s smiling. Maybe that‘s what keeps panic from overwhelming her at the sight this one time. Or maybe it‘s the fact that she‘s simply too tired to be scared. 

„Just in case“, she manages to get out, „just in case we both die today.“ 

For just one more moment he lets his forehead rest against hers. „Yes. Just in case.“ 

Then he pulls back and they‘re silent for a while. Eventually they start making plans again, for how they‘ll kill Everdeen and Odair and all of the others. Not even the thought of Everdeen‘s chest pierced by her sword still brings Enobaria a spark of joy. But this is what she learned, what she knows how to do.

The only thing she knows how to do.

The next morning they look for them, and eventually spott their camp on the beach, suspiciously exposed. 

„They feel safe because they‘re so many,“ Brutus says. 

„We‘ll see if they still feel safe when I slit their throats,“ Enobaria says.

But it never comes to that.

Later, she doesn‘t remember the events of the third day very well. She still knows that she and Brutus went hunting after sundown. Remembers Everdeen on the ground, seemingly incapacitated. Remembers that she was separated from Brutus, that she stabbed Beetee Latier from Three when she found him. Finnick chasing her through the forest, screams somewhere behind them. A cannon. Then another. 

She remembers branches hitting her in the face, the sweat running down her back, strands of hair sticking to her forehead. The burning pain in her limbs. The look on Finnick‘s face, like he just saw her crawl up out of hell. 

Panic-stricken, she stumbles through the forest, not an inkling of where she‘s going, disoriented, terrified. Her swords, she lost minutes ago. She tastes blood in her mouth.

She spots Chaff‘s body first. One of the cannons must have been his, and for just a moment Enobaria is overwhelmed by relief, because Beetee cannot have survived the injuries she gave him. But then she notices Brutus a few feet away. 

After that, everything is blurry. She only remembers her own rattling breaths, the roaring of her heartbeat in her ears. When the Capitol‘s hovercraft takes her, she doesn‘t resist. 

Later, much later, she learns that District 13 launched a rescue operation for the other victors. She was left behind. They assumed that the Capitol had sent her home; District 2, after all, was still on its side at that point. 

The Capitol doesn‘t send her home. For weeks, she is tortured, at first for information she doesn‘t have, until they realize that, and keep going just for the fun of it. 

It doesn‘t bother her. There are no horrors she could meet within the white chambers of the Capitol that she isn‘t already intimately familiar with thousandfold. 

One day, the door to her cell opens. The thought of what is sure to follow doesn‘t scare her anymore, but then her tired, bloodshot eyes register that the person that just entered isn‘t wearing a peacekeeper uniform.

„Enobaria Marcadieu?“ The young man has a few scrapes on his cheeks and his eyes shine with a kind of joy that Enobaria knows has absolutely nothing to do with her.

Slowly, she pushes herself up into a sitting position. Every inch of her body aches. She manages a single nod.

„I‘m here to get you out of here. President Snow‘s reign is over. The rebellion won.“ 

He moves to help her up, and reluctantly, she lets him. She knows that she should be surprised, confused, maybe even scared or angry. But she just feels numb.

The man in the rebel uniform leads her outside. It‘s been months since she last left the building, and the sun burns in her eyes when she steps out onto the street. Her legs are trembling beneath her.

A team of paramedics is waiting for her and bundles her into a makeshift ambulance. In a just as provisional, but functional hospital, her wounds are taken care of, and the girl that cleans and stitches a long, bloody cut on her cheek tells her about the rebellion, without being asked and with the same light in her eyes that Enobaria saw with the soldier. She listens. A deep, if dull satisfaction that overcomes her at the description of Snow‘s demise is all that stirs within her.

Several days later, she is discharged. She stands on the street with the cracked asphalt, still decorated here and there with debris from the surrounding buildings, blinks at the sun above her and wonders why in the world she is still alive.

She decides to go back to Two - out of habit, not homesickness, for she knows that her house in the Victor‘s Village is almost certainly in ruins, and even if not there would be nothing of meaning waiting for her there. But before she can reach the train station with the single set of undamaged tracks, she‘s intercepted by a troupe of soldiers and informed that President Coin wishes for her presence in the presidential palace. Enobaria goes with them, even though _President Coin_ tastes like ashes in her mouth.

She is led to a meeting room that is still in good enough shape that she wouldn‘t be too surprised if Snow walked through the door the next moment. Around a round wooden table, Annie Cresta, Peeta Mellark, Haymitch Abernathy, Johanna Mason, Beetee Latier and Katniss Everdeen are seated. All of the surviving victors. The disgust in their eyes when Enobaria enters the room would have made her feel sick before. At least made her angry. 

But she doesn‘t feel anything.

She sits down at the other end of the table. Johanna Mason threatens to kill her, regardless of the Mockingjay Deal. Enobaria gives her a smile. One last smile. One last baring of her teeth. 

They aren‘t sharp anymore; dulled by countless hours of grinding them together to hold back her screams. 

When Coin presents them with the idea of the 76th Hunger Games, it still doesn‘t move anything inside of Enobaria. She watches Peeta‘s horror, Annie‘s grief, Beetee‘s rationalism with cold eyes. 

Johanna votes yes, to no surprise.

When it‘s her turn, Enobaria thinks of the boy from Six and the taste of his blood in her mouth. Of Clove dead on the ground. Of Cato‘s torn up remains. 

Of Brutus. 

„Yes.“ Her voice sounds like a stranger‘s to her own ears. „Let them have a taste of it.“ 

A few years later, after things have settled down, she pays from her own pocket to have a headstone installed for Brutus in a cemetery near her apartment. The grave beneath it is empty. They never retrieved his body from the arena. 

Enobaria stands in front of it, traces the carving with her fingertips. Tips her head back, as if she could find any of the answers she‘s looking for up there, in the slate gray sky above her. 

„Now, what did you end up saving, old friend?“, she murmurs. Recalls his final bloody smile again. 

She hasn‘t touched a weapon since the Games. She‘d rather let herself be murdered, by Johanna or whoever else, than do it again.

She knows that the whole world disdains her. It‘s a good thing she disdains the world just as much, or else her existence would be even less bearable than it already is.

The last career tribute. Not a title she‘d ever have wanted in a thousand years.

She inhales deeply. „I‘m alive“, she says out loud. And then again, even louder:

„I‘m alive.“ 

The traces of a sad smile tug at the corners of her mouth, just for an instant. 

„I hope you‘d be happy.“ 

One last time her fingers brush over the name, then she stuffs her hand back into the pocket of her coat, turns and starts on her way home.


End file.
